The soul of a city is expressed through its architecture, its energy, its pace, its power spots, and the signature of its many peoples. In exchange for providing a home for its inhabitants and a workshop for their muscle, intellect, and imagination, the city asks its citizens to care for its soul. All too often, this part of the bargain is not honored.
That certainly is the case in The Waterworks. The setting for this stimulating and highly moral novel is New York City in 1871. McIlvaine, a newspaper editor, serves as narrator. He describes the soul of the metropolis as "a roiling soul, twisting and turning over on itself, forming and reforming, gathering into itself and opening out again like a blown cloud."
When Martin Pemberton, the son of a tycoon who got rich running slaves, disappears, McIlvaine sets out to find him. The city doesn't offer much help with its strident noise, its political corruption, the terrible gap between the rich and the poor, and "everyone securing his needs in a state of cheerful degeneracy."
E. L. Doctorow has always excelled in an examination of how history, character, and morality intertwine. That interest comes to the fore in this novel where Pemberton's disappearance involves the machinations of the rich, the messianic activities of a deranged scientist, and the cruel treatment of the city's poorest and most vulnerable citizens. The soul of New York City still hurts in some of the same ways today.